The Rollercoaster ANC Ride

3/6/2012: 12:30 PM

We had such a good time yesterday. Davis had an abundance of energy and was quite entertaining. Kyle brightened our day by making crafts with Davis and hanging out with us for private play time.

Desperate for a sword.

Kyle's creative craftiness at work.

Our weekend roommate, a 17-year-old, went home around 2:00 PM, and by 5:00 PM, we had a new roommate, a 9-year-old.

Donkey Kong Wii mania.

Last night, Davis was given some Lorazepam to help with some nausea and headache issues. Lorazepam always makes Davis a little weepy, so the medicine combined with some understandable homesickness made Davis cry for over an hour. He cried for his dad; he cried for Annakate. I knew when he kept mumbling, "Mom, I miss Annakate so much" that he was really homesick. So I did what I think all mothers would do. I snuggled him and held him, and pulled up the show Wipeout on hulu, and soon the tears turned to laughter. After he was settled, we watched Power Rangers (the movie). Well, I feel asleep (one of God's kind blessings because the movie was that bad) and he finished the movie.

Today, we have company. Davis has a nurse, a student nurse, a tech, and a student tech. There is a lot of activity between the four people watching over him. Tracie, a music therapist from the Maryville University "Kids Rock Cancer" organization stopped in and worked with Davis to write a record an original song. He was in heaven. He loved every minute of it. It was fascinating. I have to figure out a way to attach his song to the blog.

Tracie and Davis composing music.

Good news and bad news. Davis' counts came back lower than yesterday. His hemoglobin and platelets have inched down a bit, but the doctors are still waiting to transfuse. They want his bone marrow to kick in and start working. Plus, since Davis isn't experiencing any side effects of the low counts, there is no need to take action. While his white count has increased from .5 to .9 (healthy kids between 5-10), today he had no neutrophils, so his ANC was 0. The good news?  His monocytes (predictors of ANC jumps) are trending up. Usually the monocytes come up and then the neutrophils come up. His monocytes moved from 9 to 12.

I guess today will be more of the same.

Random photo. Davis and I have discovered that a storage room
is the room with the best view. I don't know why that fact makes me want to both
laugh and cry. You can't tell in the photo, but the Arch is out there. Davis is too cute. He noticed the baby beds.
I said, "Wow. This room sure is warm." He said, "It has to be, Mom. They keep the
babies in here." Did I mention it's a storage room?

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

We will keep you posted.